Acxiom/Direct Media is currently accepting contributors to an e-mail address appending service called E-Base that it expects to roll out in the next two to four months. The new service is part of a restructuring of its interactive division that involves an increased role for Bigfoot, the Internet directory firm in which Acxiom holds a one-third interest.
Bigfoot, New York, which currently handles e-mail fulfillment for DMI, Greenwich, CT, will assume some of the e-mail campaign management and marketing now overseen at DMI by Regina Brady. Brady’s division will continue to handle some ECM and develop E-Base. The domestic and international sections of the online catalog request site CatalogLink will become part of DMI’s SmartBase cooperative catalog database.
“We’re putting pieces [of the interactive division] where they should be,” said DMI CEO Steve Brighton. He confirmed that the restructuring will not require any job cuts.
E-Base will function similar to a telephone number appending service. Data providers will contribute files that contain both a consumer’s mailing and opt-in e-mail address. Once the e-mail repository reaches critical mass, clients will be able to submit a customer file and have e-mail addresses appended to matches. E-Base Contributors will be paid a percentage of the matches and receive discounted rates to have their own files appended.
Once up and running, E-Base will be marketed through DMI, Acxiom InfoBase and a sales force now being assembled at Bigfoot, according to DMI chairman Dave Florence. Florence said Direct Media will continue to sell e-mail services to direct marketing clients while Bigfoot will gear its overall sales efforts to larger corporations outside the DM arena.
In a related matter, Brighton said DMI has no plans to shut down its international list division and satellite office in the United Kingdom and that it is one of the company’s top producing profit centers.
